A district court in Israel has rejected Amnesty International’s petition against the Israeli Ministry of Defence that sought to get NSO Group’s export licence revoked. Senior Judge Rachel Barkai of the Yafo District Court in Tel Aviv rejected the petition since she was satisfied with the rigour of the defence licensing process and subsequent monitoring of the licensees. Furthermore, she said that the petitioners, which included Amnesty and New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, had not provided enough evidence to support their claim that attempts were made to monitor a human rights activist through their mobile phone, or that this surveillance was carried out by the NSO Group. NSO Group provided us a translated copy of the judgement (available here) and Amnesty International confirmed its accuracy. “Without determining whether Respondent 5 [NSO Group] possesses a defense marketing and/or export license, I am satisfied that Respondents 1-4 [Defence Export Controls Agency, or DECA, Israeli Minister and Ministry of Defence, and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs] conduct their activities with the utmost care prior to granting a marketing and/or export license and afterwards, the licensee is subject to close monitoring by DECA, which exhibits an elevated sensitivity to human rights violations,” Judge Barkai wrote. The decision was delivered on Sunday, in the absence of the parties involved. Danna Ingleton, the acting co-director of Amnesty International, called this judgement “a cruel blow to people put at risk around the world by NSO Group selling its products to notorious human rights abusers”. We…
